Andrew Babjak

From Žbince to the Battlefields of D-Day

Andrew Babjak was born Andrej Babjak on January 20, 1924, in Veľké Žbince, now the village of Žbince in Michalovce District in eastern Slovakia. He was the elder of two sons born to Andrej Babjak and Mária Mitníková. His parents had already been living in the United States for some time, and in 1939 Andrew began his journey to join them. Seven days before Nazi Germany invaded Poland, travel documents were issued for him in Prague. On December 27, 1939, fifteen-year-old Andrew arrived in New York aboard the ocean liner Lancastria. He later reunited with his parents in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In June 1940, the Lancastria was sunk by German aircraft off the French coast, with thousands of people losing their lives.\ \ In Bridgeport, Andrew worked for the Frisbie Pie Company. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on May 15, 1943, and completed basic training at Camp Wheeler, Georgia. A few months later, he became a U.S. citizen and joined the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. In late December 1943, the regiment left New York for Europe. After training in Northern Ireland and England, its soldiers prepared for the Allied invasion of Normandy.\ \ During the night of June 5–6, 1944, Operation Neptune—the airborne phase of the Allied landings in Normandy, known as Operation Overlord—began. Andrew served in Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was an ammunition bearer in a mortar platoon. He flew to France aboard a Douglas C-47-DL Skytrain identified as Chalk #3, assigned to the 47th Troop Carrier Squadron. The aircraft carried seventeen paratroopers in addition to its four-man crew. The jump was scheduled for 2:20 a.m. local time on June 6, 1944.\ \ The airborne operation was complicated by poor visibility, low cloud and German defences. Andrew Babjak did not survive the first morning of D-Day. He died on June 6, 1944, probably by drowning in the flooded Douve River basin on the Cotentin Peninsula. German forces had opened flood-control gates to inundate large areas and hinder the advance of Allied paratroopers. The water and marshy terrain posed a deadly danger to soldiers carrying heavy equipment. The exact place where Andrew died has not been established with certainty.\ \ His remains were buried on June 15, 1944, in a temporary military cemetery near Blosville, France. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. In late 1947, his remains were moved to Normandy American Cemetery near Colleville-sur-Mer, where he rests today. According to the available research, Andrew Babjak was the only known member of the U.S. 82nd or 101st Airborne Divisions born in Slovakia to have been killed during the Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day itself. His story remembers a young man who left his native village at fifteen and, just a few years later, gave his life in the fight to liberate Europe.